and to public opinion, and because Evans and
Bayard had lesser influence than the other landed functionaries. But the
owners of the other estates tenaciously held them intact. The people
regarded Bellomont as a sincere and ardent reformer, but the landed men
and their following abused him as a meddler and destructionist.
Despairing of getting a self-interested assembly to act, Bellomont
appealed to the Lords of Trade:

"If your Lordships mean I shall go on to break the rest of the
extravagant grants of land by Colonel Fletcher or other governors, by
act of assembly, I shall stand in need of a peremptory order from the
King so to do."[23] A month later he insisted to his superiors at home
that if they intended that the corrupt and extravagant grants should be
confiscated--"(which I will be bold to say by all the rules of reason
and justice ought to be done) I believe it must be done by act of
Parliament in England, for I am a little jealous I shall not have
strength enough in the assembly of New York to break them." The majority
of this body, he pointed out, were landed men, and when their own
interest was touched, they declined to act contrary to it. Unless, added
Bellomont, "the power of our Palatines, Smith, Livingston, the Phillips,
father and son[24]--and six or seven more were reduced ... the country
is ruined."[25]

Despite some occasional breaches in its intrenchments, the landocracy
continued to rule everywhere with a high hand, its power, as a whole,
unbroken.

HOW THE LORDS OF THE SOIL LIVED.

A glancing picture of one of these landed proprietors will show the
manner in which they lived and what was then accounted their luxury. As
one of the "foremost men of his day," in the colonies Colonel Smith
lived in befitting style. This stern, bushy-eyed man who robbed the
community of a vast tract of land and who, as chief justice, was
inflexibly severe in dealing punishment to petty criminals and ever
vigilant in upholding the rights of property, was lord of the Manor of
St. George, Suffolk County. The finest silks and lace covered his
judicial person. His embroidered belts, costing L110, at once attested
his great wealth and high station. He had the extraordinary number of
one hundred and four silver buttons to adorn his clothing. When he
walked a heavy silver-headed cane supported him, and he rode on a fancy
velvet saddle. His three swords were of the finest make; occasionally he
affected a Turkish scimeter